Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE SLIPRAILS AND THE SPUR, by HENRY HERTZBERG LAWSON Poet's Biography First Line: The colors of the setting sun Last Line: Steal home and cry herself to sleep. Subject(s): Farewell; Love; Spurs; Parting | ||||||||
THE colors of the setting sun Withdrew across the Western land He raised the sliprails, one by one, And shot them home with trembling hand; Her brown hands clung her face grew pale Ah! quivering chin and eyes that brim! One quick, fierce kiss across the rail, And, "Good-bye, Mary!" "Good-bye, Jim!" Oh! he rides hard to race the pain Who rides from love, who rides from home: But he rides slowly home again, Whose heart has learnt to love and roam. A hand upon the horse's mane, And one foot in the stirrup set, And, stooping back to kiss again, With "Good-bye, Mary! don't you fret! When I come back" he laughed for her "We do not know how soon't will be; I'll whistle as I round the spur You let the sliprails down for me." She gasped for sudden loss of hope, As, with a backward wave to her, He cantered down the grassy slope And swiftly round the dark'ning spur. Black-pencilled panels standing high, And darkness fading into stars, And blurring fast against the sky, A faint white form beside the bars. And often at the set of sun, In winter bleak and summer brown, She'd steal across the little run, And shyly let the sliprails down, And listen there when darkness shut The nearer spur in silence deep; And when they called her from the hut Steal home and cry herself to sleep. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE THREE CHILDREN by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN STUDY #2 FOR B.B.L. by JUNE JORDAN WATCHING THE NEEDLEBOATS AT SAN SABBA by JAMES JOYCE SESTINA: TRAVEL NOTES by WELDON KEES ANDY'S GONE WITH CATTLE by HENRY HERTZBERG LAWSON |
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